IRC News Minutes provided by Sue Ellen Richey, Recording Secretary

January 20, 2004

VOTING MEMBERS PRESENT : PHILLIP TURNER, Chair,  ELIZABETH HINKLE-TURNER, COY HOGGARD (for JONEEL HARRIS),  PAM HIGHT (for DON GROSE), JENNY JOPLING,  JUDITH ADKISON, JIM CURRY, CHRISTY CRUTSINGER, LOU ANN BRADLEY, SCOTT KREJCI (for JON NELSON), KIRK KELLY (for CHUCK FULLER), ABRAHAM JOHN NON-VOTING MEMBERS PRESENT:  RICHARD HARRIS,  JOE ADAMO, MAURICE LEATHERBURY, PATRICK PLUSCHT, SUE ELLEN RICHEY  (Recording Secretary) MEMBERS ABSENT:  RAMU MUTHIAH, KATHY SWIGGER, BRUCE HUNTER, MAX KAZEMZADEH, JOHN PRICE, CENGIZ CAPAN, KENN MOFFITT, DONNA ASHER, ROBERT NIMOCKS, DOUG MAINS, ARMIN MIKLER, BOBBY CARTER, JOHN CASTLEDINE

The minutes of the December 16^th meeting were approved as submitted. The Chair reported that there has not been a President’s Staff meeting since the last IRC meeting.

Distributed Computing Support Management Team 

Maurice Leatherbury reported for the Distributed Computing Support Management Team that they have met and have decided to renew the McAfee Virus protection software license. The group also discussed problems with LDAP, which have now been resolved.

Communications Planning Group 

Lou Ann Bradley reported that the Communications Planning Group has met and discussed bandwidth issues and the tools UNT currently has to monitor that. Their group also heard an update on the statewide network. Bradley also noted that the Research Park has been fully wired with Cat6 wiring which will prepare that facility for future communications needs. 

There was some discussion of wireless access on campus during which it was noted that it is possible to log into the Novell network using the wireless access now available on campus. It was noted that at last count there had been around 300 users of the wireless access points.

EIS Planning Group

Coy Hoggard reported for the EIS Planning Group and noted that account balance information in summary form is still available on the Purchasing & Payment Services server and they plan to have detailed information available soon.  Salary information will be included in summary form on the Financial system reports, and detailed salary information will be available through the Human Resources system. Hoggard announced that training for the e-procurement pilot group is scheduled to begin next week, and that the Human Resources/Payroll Time Reporting system is working successfully.  In addition, Admissions and Contributor Relations continue to be up and running well.  The Student Finance and Financial Aid systems are scheduled to go live on April 1 with actual student records being moved to April 30^th.  Continuing students will register in the legacy system.  This will require that their enrollment information be transferred to the PeopleSoft system later.  On April 30^th 250 – 300 “Early Eagle” students will be registered on the new system. Summer registration will be done on the legacy system and Fall registration (other than the group of continuing students mentioned above) will be done in the new system.

An upgrade to PeopleSoft 8.9 will be planned for the end of the 2004 calendar year.

Student Computing Planning Group

Elizabeth Hinkle-Turner reported for the Student Computing Planning Group that today was the last official day students could respond to the Student Computing Survey, and at this time they have received 900 responses.  She stated that the Planning Group has not yet met and said that she is having trouble getting undergraduate students to participate in the Planning Group.

Distributed Learning Team 

Patrick Pluscht reported that the Distributed Learning Team has not met since the last IRC meeting, but he reported that the eCampus website is being highly used, having had 28,000 hits on it to date.  He announced that on February 10^th there will be a virtual ribbon cutting with the Chancellor and the President participating.  Patrick invited IRC members to join the celebration, the exact time and place for which will be announced soon.  Jenny Jopling added that Vista and WebCT are working well. 

Statewide Optical Network

Maurice Leatherbury reported that the review committee is close to selecting the vendor to begin work on the initial link of the statewide optical network from Dallas to Austin. Funds for the project have not yet been released by the State. Maurice announced that he has been elected Secretary of the governing organization of this project, and that Dan Updegrove of UT Austin is President.  There has been a run-off election for the position of Vice President, and there has not yet been a Treasurer elected.

Information Technology Council for Higher Education (ITCHE) 

Richard Harris announced that he attended a meeting of the Information Technology Council for Higher Education (ITCHE) on January 13^th. This group is working with D.I.R. to review D.I.R. rules. Richard stated that he believes that this group will be doing some valuable work and that his participation in it will be beneficial to UNT.

^* For a list of IRC Regular and Ex-officio Members click here.